Jesse Eisenberg Gives Kieran Culkin a Gift

The Pitch: Cousins David and Benji (Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin) grew up like brothers before drifting apart as adults — something the more straight-laced David hopes to fix, as the two men travel to Poland for a week-long tour of the country dedicated to the painful legacy of the Holocaust. David and Benji are officially on the trip as a way of memorializing their recently deceased grandmother, a concentration camp survivor, but it also ends up being an opportunity for the two men to reconnect despite their massive differences. For, while David has his life together — stable job, happy family — Benji’s much more adrift. Making him one of the realest people David knows.

The Coolest Person in the Room: A Real Pain is star/writer/director Jesse Eisenberg’s second feature, following When You Finish Saving the World, and represents a major leap forward in his craft as a filmmaker. The movie’s tight 90 minutes is made possible by its remarkable focus on its core characters — yet while its scope is small, there’s a lot of emotion packed into this witty and elegantly-shot character study.

The most important creative decision Eisenberg makes is putting the spotlight on Kieran Culkin and not getting in his way, as the Emmy-winning Succession star delivers one of the best performances of the year. It’s not so much that Culkin steals scenes as it is that the scenes excel because they’re built around him — the character of Benji serving as a live wire, whose way of seeing the world electrifies his time on screen.

Everyone’s known a person like Benji before, after all — that friend or relative who’s always the coolest in every room, who has enough charisma to light up everyone around them. People like Benji are easy to adore on first sight, because they’re so much more alive than anyone else. They reject the conventional. They take chances most folks wouldn’t. And they’re so much fun to be around… Until, that is, they aren’t, as their inner darkness lashes out, or they overstep social bounds. The meeker David, meanwhile, is stuck in orbit around Benji, a bright blazing star… that David keeps having to apologize for.

Painful History: If this movie was just a two-hander about two cousins on a trip, it wouldn’t be nearly substantial enough to last even 90 minutes. But if it were saddled with a more complicated plotline (a heist or a murder, perhaps), its powers as a character drama would be lost. So points to Eisenberg for finding just the right amount of narrative heft to keep things moving, letting the flow of David and Benji’s guided tour through Poland drive the story.

Joining David and Benji are a handful of fellow tourists, played by Jennifer Beals, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, and Daniel Oreskes, who offer up their own stories as contrast to David and Benji’s, and make for an engaging, if sometimes awkward ensemble. Which is to say, it perfectly captures the energy that occurs when a bunch of strangers get grouped together for a trip like this — especially since this isn’t a goofy tourist jaunt, as the group’s deeply sincere tour guide James (Will Sharpe) tells them. This is a look at real human atrocities.

A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)

A Real Pain was shot on location in Poland — and, for an extra burst of Polish-ness, the soundtrack leans heavily on the works of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. Eisenberg takes at times an almost austere approach to filming the country’s mix of modern, Brutalist, and pre-war architecture. However, as a director, he’s not afraid to poke some fun at the exercise of walking around to look at history, as seen in one of the film’s most amusing scenes, in which Benji engages the group in a quick round of make-believe, adults turning into children at the feet of the Warsaw Uprising Monument.

And when it comes to the sequence shot in the Majdanek concentration camp, Eisenberg steps back and letting the sights speak for themselves: The blue tint of the gas chamber’s walls, the thousands of shoes heaped inside a cage. Enduring memories of what occurred. That the film still manages to find its way back to humor after those sequences speaks to Eisenberg’s skill and confidence as a filmmaker.

The Verdict: There ends up being something really profound about the way A Real Pain lets the undercurrent of history serve as contrast to the deeply felt emotions of its core character story, especially as David tries harder and harder to connect with Benji. It’s a testament to the work of both men that this relationship feels so believable, molded by two very different personalities who may never be able to fully communicate with each other, but love each other despite that.

It’s career-best stuff for both Culkin as an actor and Eisenberg as a filmmaker, in ways that create genuine excitement for whatever the latter does next. Out-of-the-gate geniuses can be exciting, of course, but it’s honestly more of a long-term thrill to watch someone really come into their own as a storyteller. And with his thoughtful, nuanced work here, Eisenberg has established himself as someone with powerful things to say.

Where to Watch: A Real Pain arrives in theaters on November 1st.

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